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Bill Evans Trio — Portrait In Jazz

On the heels of his collaboration with Miles Davis on the landmark “Kind of Blue”, pianist Bill Evans’ first record with his trio was an important and influential one, signaling a new direction for small groups and piano trios. Paul Motion (dr) and Scott Lafaro (bs) were the perfect fit, supporting Evans and interacting in a new way. They were not always playing straight time, and the bass was in the forefront melodically as a lead voice along with the piano. It’s compelling, exciting, and constantly evolving music.

This is an early, but not first pressing on Riverside. It has the blue label with the deepgroove, “reels”, and “Bill Grauer”, but I believe a first pressing has the smaller blue label. It has been played a lot and shows wear, grading at VG, but still sounds quite good, particularly considering how quiet the music is. The cover is very clean and still in the original shrink. (Details: Riverside 12-315 mono)

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The US Riverside twin-reel label starts out White 1955-7, changes to Blue for releases 1957-8, and then changes to a smaller size Blue label in 1958-60. Most important neither large nor small of these blue labels have the “Inc” appended to “Bill Grauer Productions”. After 1960 the “Inc” is added and the blue label reverts to full size. Come 1964, the twin reels disappear. The “Inc” dates this copy as after 1960, if that helps.